Inflation is something that very rarely goes away, in some years it is low, even negative and in others it hits double figures.

This does affect the business and liability insurance purchasing community. Over the past few years, inflation has been at a relatively acceptable level, in the low single digit range. The reason this affects insurance is that over the past five years, premiums have not been increasing by 3-5% a year. A £1,000 premium in 2004 should really be around the £1,200 mark in 2009, after compounding inflation. What has happened in the real (or alternative in some cases) insurance world is that premiums have stayed about the same. So, if you were looking for a restaurant insurance quote in 2004 and the price was £750, in 2009 if you look around you will still get the same sort of price.

Now, insurers have continued to pay out claims and these have increased with the UK floods and the increased crime due to the recession. As a result, the amount paid in claims has increased, as has the quantum because inflation has affected the costs they pay out ie rebuilding costs.

So, insurers are sitting there receiving less premium than they should and paying out more in claims than they want. Basic economics says that this cannot go on. We have been at the tipping point for a few years now, but all the pointers are that those of you looking for a business insurance quote in 2010 will not automatically find a bargain.

However, it is not a needle in a haystack scenario, many commercial insurance brokers will search around long enough to find you the best deal. The key is to find a broker that is prepared to do the searching for you.

Landlord is of course an old phrase, in this day and age it is not only males who are allowed to own land. Anyone and everyone can now purchase a property, so where we have landlords insurance in the title, what we really mean is property owners.

This relates to properties, or buildings, that are owned and rented out in return for a fee. Since 2000 up to mid 2007 there was a boom in the purchase of buy to let insurance properties. As we all know now, this turned into a monumental bust, despite promises from Gordon Brown that we would not return to a boom and bust economy. Not sure really if he could have got that more wrong if he had tried.

Anyway, whilst a few “buy to letters” have exited the market, there are still many individuals and businesses who have single properties or portfolios. The one thing they have in common is that there will be a need to arrange property owners insurance.

The basic policy includes the buildings, structure or bricks and mortar. The thing that differentiates the 100’s of different products is not just whether they can give you a cheap quote, it is the terms, conditions and additional sections of cover.

When looking around for a quote, try to get a policy which allows you to include contents, loss of rent, glass, sanitary ware, property owners liability and rent guarantee insurance. This is where approximately 40% of all claims occur. Whilst the buildings tend to bear the brunt of the claims, mainly through storm and break ins, there are claims, day in day out, for glass, loss of rent and contents.

Speak to a broker that has access to more than one insurer for this type of product, that way you can be sure you will be getting the most competitive quote that the broker can provide.

One question that many people in business will immediately ask is, what is an aggregator site? The UK insurance industry is renowned for using very long words when a few simple ones will do.

For business insurance aggregator site, read websites that compare business insurance quotes.

An aggregator site is simply a website where you put in certain information which they then submit to some insurers to get a quote.

We have a real problem with these aggregator sites. The main reasons are that they do not compare all insurance companies, maybe for car or home insurance they may look at 50% plus of the available insurers. But, this does not mean that they are looking at 50% plus of the available products. This is because a lot of commercial insurance companies allow different insurance brokers to have access to different styles of products.

Therefore, if you are looking for a cheap business insurance quote, you may be successful. The problem is, it may be cheap because the cover is poor, the excesses are high or in the event of a claim it will take longer than acceptable to get things sorted out.

So, if you really are looking for a decent policy, at a good price with acceptable service in the event of a claim, speak to a specialist commercial insurance broker.

Commercial insurance is something that many small business owners grudge paying for. It is not very often that you purchase something that can cost a small fortune, you put in a drawer and never hope to use it.

Whatever your thoughts are on this type of product, you will usually find that there is a combination of legally required cover and cover that any sensible business would have.

In the good old days (according to some) getting a business insurance quote was a long, laborious drawn out process. The only option you had was to purchase a policy through a face to face meeting with a specialist business insurance broker. Either they would come to see you or you would have to go their offices to provide your details. Giving your information over the phone was not really accepted. If you chose to speak to a broker who wasn’t in your local area then insurers started to ask questions about why you were approaching a broker many miles away from your business.

Thankfully, with the advent of modern technology and a more forward thinking attitude from insurers, you can do everything from the comfort of your desk. Insurers now accept that businesses in Exeter, Exmouth or East Grinstead can choose to purchase their commercial insurance from brokers in Perth, Penzance or Penrith.

The way you can do this is through the wonder that is the world wide web. The vast majority if people have Google as their home page and putting in a search phrase particular for your business, such as shop insurance quote, is all you need to do.

Make sure though that the company offers you the ability to call them to discuss your insurance. We are great believers in talking, filling our boxes and clicking buttons is OK for providing information but you need to speak to a broker for them to really understand your demands and needs.

Commercial insurance policies can be purchased throughout the year. As we come into the busy Christmas and New Year period, we tend to find, unsurprisingly, that there are less companies looking around for a business insurance quote.

But, whenever your insurance is due for renewal, you can plan to do some ground work in early January 2010 when many businesses are going through a quiet phase. The reason we say this is because, in our estimation, 3 in every 10 businesses do compare business insurance quotes at renewal because they do not have time.

In early January, you should do three things to help get a cheap business insurance quote:-

1) Find all of your insurance documents and put them in one, lever arch file, in date order.

2) Speak to at least three business insurance brokers and advise them that you are looking for alternative quotes.

3) Await your quotes. If they are substantially different (lower) then check the cover is the same, if it is then you should seriously consider changing your policy. You will need to check though that the terms and conditions do not restrict the return of premium.

If the premium is not much different, or higher, from the alternatives then you will be happy in the knowledge that you are not paying through the nose with your current insurer.

Most businesses will have some form of requirement for public liability insurance. Unlike employers liability insurance, PL (for short) is not legally required.

You may be asked to prove that you have the cover in force by an individual or commercial enterprise you are working for but having the cover cannot be forced on you. Sensible business owners and entrepreneurs realise though that certain types of cover are prudent to take out.

One of these is public liability. The chances of a claim? As with most insurance products, these are small. The chances of that one claim being of a high cost, not so small unfortunately. The claims are rare but the costs are high.

Normally a business will look around for some form of business liability insurance quote, this may also include employers and products liability, which you may not need.

If you are a small, sole trader, then maybe all you need is a basic public liability cover at £1,000,000. If this is the case, and you are not doing anything too risky (like scaffolding or window cleaning) you will find minimum premiums around the £100 mark. This would apply to say, carpenters, electricians and plasterers, whereas plumbers and heating engineers will pay a higher premium because of the increased risks their businesses present.

As always, and this will never change, speak to an independent business insurance broker to get a range of quotes.

At the height of the toxic assets issue in the US, the big name was AIG. They were once quite proud of the sheer size of the company but it was all built on insuring those extremely risky assets which every man, woman, child, cat and dog are aware of.

In the UK, if you were that way inclined, you may have seen the name on a certain football clubs shirt.

Now though, the AIG name is to disappear from the UK as it has been re-branded Chartis Insurance UK Limited. In the main this is to distance themselves from the US parent.

AIG UK was, and still is, a profitable business. They concentrated on commercial insurance, albeit for larger businesses, and were quite careful in the businesses they wrote and conservative in their pricing.

Lets hope this is the positive step for the UK insurance industry we think it will be. Onwards and upwards to a more sensible financial future.

Commercial property insurance is the same as all other types of insurance, it is about those once in a blue moon events. You hope that you will not have a claim and even if you do, you don’t want it to be something major.

However, you need to consider that catastrophic claim scenario and decide whether you wish to insure or not. For landlords insurance cover, one of the key areas, apart from the cover for the bricks and mortar, is loss of rental income. What happens if there is a fire or flood and the property is without a tenant for a period of time?

The good thing is that landlords and buy to let insurance policies do have the option of insuring loss of rental income, due to an insured peril. This is not the same as tenant default insurance.

What this means is that if you have a good regular tenant there is nothing you can do if the property suffers a fire or a major flood, similar to the situation in Cumbria last week.

The loss of rental income cover simply pays you, under your property owners insurance, an amount every month equivalent to your rental income. You can then choose whether to help your tenant find alternative accommodation until they can move back into the property, or to simply receive the insurance rent payment and cancel your tenancy agreement.

Many buy to let properties are funded on second mortgages and as we sit in 2009, going into the economic uncertainty of 2010, the last thing you want is a mortgage you cannot pay.

Loss of rental income insurance is negligible compared to the overall policy cost, don’t get caught out, make sure that you have this cover in place.

Christmas is coming, hip hip hooray. When I was young, too many years ago, the shops really only starting stocking up for Christmas in early December. In those days it really was easy to go shopping on Christmas eve and if you were prepared to trudge up and down Oxford or Regent Street for a few hours, you could get all of your presents sorted out.

Nowadays though, every shop is competing and the perceived (?) wisdom is that the earlier you get the stock in the shops, the more chance there is that customers will buy from you and not your competitor. Some may moan, but given the economic trouble we are now in you can’t blame the shops for trying to survive.

This, believe it or not, does have an affect on shop insurance. Lets say for example that you decide to open a nice fancy goods shop selling trinkets and home wares. You start the business in the summer and, as usually happens, you look around for a shop insurance quote in a mad panic three hours before you open.

You speak to a commercial insurance broker and they ask you certain questions to get you a quote, one of which is “how much stock do you have?”. So you do a stock take and declare £10,000. Your happy with the quote and take out the policy. Then, as you get closer to Christmas, you understandably increase your stock as this is your busiest time.

The problem is, that if you have a loss and your stock sum insured is really £12,000 when you are insured for £10,000, you could lose out on a percentage of your claim.

Help is at hand though, all you need to do, is back pedal to when you were looking for your quote. When you get this in writing, ask the broker if it includes a free seasonal stock increase. Many policies automatically increase the sum insured for stock by 20 to 30% for the period building up to (ie 20 or 30 days before) any Bank Holiday. This way, as you are hopefully rushing around like a mad thing selling all your stock, you do not need to worry about whether you have an adequate sum insured.